Third World And World Community

In January 1965, the Italian port city of Genova saw the gathering of a large group of filmmakers, writers, poets and activists from Europe, Latin America and Africa to discuss the conditions facing the Third World. The participants included among others, Brazilian director Glauber Rocha, Cuban theorist and filmmaker Julio Garcia Espinosa—both of whom would give the first iterations of their famous manifestos during this event – as well as filmmaker and anthropologist Jean Rouch, writer Alioune Diop (founder of journal Présence Africaine) and Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, to mention just a few. They were all involved—directly or indirectly—in the decolonization struggles that were lighting up across all parts of the world, from Algeria to Cuba, from Paris to Buenos Aires, and in creating a dialogue between activists/artists of the liberation movements and European intellectuals, of which this event remains one of the most ambitious – and yet almost completely forgotten – records.

Activities, Overall Goals, and Specific Objectives

Genova Visual Lab Summer Schoolwill gather together a group of scholars, artists, and students, to assess the legacy of that historical moment and its meaning to us today, exploring many of issues initially raised by the 1965’s conference: neocolonialism, dislocation, migration, the form that solidarity can take across national borders and continents; and more generally, problematics generated by the uneven geography of contemporary globalization, and their genealogies in the recent struggles towards decolonization.